Melanie Challenger

Melanie ChallengerHow to be Animal explores the remarkable story of what it means to be human and argues that at the heart of our psychology is a profound struggle with being animal. As the most inquisitive, emotional, imaginative, aggressive and baffling animals on the planet, it questions how well we really know ourselves? Drawing on new evidence from a wide range of disciplines, Challenger proposes that being an animal is a process, beautiful and unpredictable, and that we have a chance to tell ourselves a new story, to realise that if we matter, so does everything else. Her first book On Extinction: How we became estranged from nature was published in 2011 (Granta/Counterpoint). It was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the best non-fiction books of 2012, longlisted for the Dolman Travel Book of the Year and received the Santa Barbara Library’s Green Award for environmental writing.

https://www.melaniechallenger.com/